MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell waits outside the West Wing of the White House before entering on Jan. 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the infomercial salesman who became a key Donald Trump booster, keeps pushing the same conspiracy theories that made him a defendant in a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit by Dominion, the voting machine company’s lawyer said on Friday.
“The problem here in the lawsuit is based on the public figures making very public lies about Dominion,” Dominion’s lawyer Mary Kathryn Sammons said in a hearing. “Unfortunately, the lies have continued.”
As a result of the ongoing misinformation campaign, Sammons said, Dominion has continued to be besieged by threats.
“Some of those employees have quit Dominion because of those threats,” Sammons added, adding that this has caused the company “great harm.”
Since the filing of the lawsuit in February 2021, Dominion has notched significant procedural victories.
The Trump appointee presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, advanced the company’s case against Lindell, MyPillow and fellow pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell to discovery. In his August 2021 ruling, Nichols rubbished Powell’s argument that her factual claims about Dominion were nothing more than political opinions. The same opinion advanced Dominion’s similar claims against Rudy Giuliani.
Lindell’s bid to level counterclaims Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting machine company that he tried to rope into a tale of pro-Joe Biden international intrigue, fell flat. Judge Nichols dismissed the countersuit in May, leveling additional sanctions against Lindell for asserting “groundless” and “frivolous” claims.
With only Dominion’s case remaining in the discovery phase, Sammons said: “In the past, the defendants have not showed much concern for adhering to rules of non-disclosure.”
“We are extremely concerned about leaks,” she added, requesting a protective order.
Lindell’s attorney told Nichols that court records enjoy a presumption of public access, but the judge replied that, while generally true, that refers to information filed for the docket rather than transmitted between the parties for discovery.
Nichols said that he will give the parties an opportunity to designate documents for confidentiality before he takes any further action and reconvene in roughly a week.
Earlier this week, Lindell told reporters that the FBI seized his phone in the drive-through area of a Hardee’s restaurant in Mankato, Minn., in what the MyPillow exec said was part of their investigation of Tina Peters.
The Republican clerk from Colorado’s Mesa County, Peters allegedly engaged in a data breach of Dominion Voting Systems machines and is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and one count each of identity theft, official misconduct in the first degree, violation of duty, and failure to comply with the secretary of state. Peters has pleaded not guilty to the trial and remains out on bail pending trial.
Lindell displayed what he identified as a copy of the court-authorized search warrant that the FBI gave him on his online TV show.
A photograph of Lindell outside of the West Wing of the White House on Jan. 15, 2022, within days of Biden’s inauguration, raised questions of what else Trump might do to resist the orderly transition of power in the United States.